FOX(NEW YORK) — The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, will feature a very familiar face during its Hall of Fame Classic Weekend on May 27: none other than Homer Jay Simpson.
The Hall of Fame announced that to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the classic Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat” — which had Mr. Burns staffing a company softball team with ringers including Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry, José Canseco, Ken Griffey, Jr., Roger Clemens, Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith and Wade Boggs — Homer will be inducted into the hallowed hall.
The episode not only ended with Homer winning the game with a run scored when he was drilled by a pitch, but it was chock-full of classic moments like Springfield’s Police Chief Wiggum arresting Sax for every unsolved crime in New York City, Bart and Lisa heckling Strawberry to tears, and Smith condemned to an eternity of falling through the wondrous Springfield Mystery Spot.
It also featured Terry Cashman spoofing his own hit “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke (Talkin’ Baseball)” with the episode recapping “Talkin’ Softball.”
The commemoration will feature the unveiling of memorabilia from the show, and a roundtable with Boggs and Smith, as well as the episode’s executive producers Al Jean and Mike Reiss, director Jim Reardon, and casting director Bonnie Pietila.
“The Simpsons has left an impressive imprint on our culture as the longest-running American sitcom, and ‘Homer at the Bat’ remains as popular today as when the episode aired in 1992,” said Jeff Idelson, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in a statement.
“Baseball is recognized as our National Pastime due to its wide intersection with American culture over the last two centuries,” he added. “[And] The Simpsons is a perfect example of that connection to Americana.”
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